Table of Contents

This add-on is being shut down and can no longer be provisioned. If your app uses this add-on, you should switch to a different DNS management solution as soon as possible. The PointDNS add-on is a recommended replacement.

Configure DNS servers

DNS changes can take time to propagate across the Internet. On Unix systems, you can verify that your domain is correctly pointed at Zerigo’s servers by running dig ns yourdomain.com in the shell. You should see the five servers above listed in the output.

Before you can use the add-on, you will need to do a one-time setup for your domain with your registrar, configuring it to use Zerigo’s DNS servers:

Manage domain names

It is generally best practice to add in domains and subdomains starting with the lowest level first (ie. if you are adding a base domain and several subdomains, add the base domain first, then the subdomain.)

$ heroku domains:add mydomain.com

This will automatically add an ALIAS record ‘mydomain.com’ to 'heroku-app-url.herokuapp.com’. An ALIAS record is a specific type that essentially lets us safely create a domain apex level CNAME like behavior.

Once installed, any domain or subdomain names added or removed via the heroku command-line tool will automatically be added to Zerigo’s globally distributed DNS servers. Updates happen instantly and Heroku will always keep your DNS records correct, meaning you never need to worry about them again.

For example:

$ heroku domains:add foo.mydomain.com

This will automatically add the ALIAS record 'mydomain.com’ to 'heroku-app-url.herokuapp.com’ and a CNAME record 'foo.mydomain.com’ to 'heroku-app-url.herokuapp.com’. If the ALIAS record already exists then it just adds the CNAME.

Of course, you can also remove a domain or subdomain name at any time with:

$ heroku domains:remove foo.mydomain.com

Managing MX and other host records

If your domain is handling mail, you will need to manage your MX Records. The Zerigo DNS add-on provides support for this by allowing you access to Zerigo’s web based management interface. Here’s how you use it: